Page 70 of The Mafia's Quintuplets

Leonid steps out from the haze near the mezzanine debris, face set in grim finality. Sasha moves silently behind him, wiping down a suppressed sidearm with methodical care.

“His men?” I ask, though I already know the answer.

Leonid nods. “Clean. Quick. They saw too much.”

I don’t look away from Fedor’s body. “They always do.”

He doesn't argue. There’s nothing to say. The decision was made the moment Fedor walked into this trap flanked by loyal eyes.

“It’s done, then,” Sasha says.

“Almost.”

Outside, the night air feels cleansing after the dust and memories of the ruined club. I breathe deeply, feeling lighter despite the violence just committed. The final bridges are burned, and the last connections are severed. I've destroyed my kingdom methodically and completely and cut the last cancerous ties to the world that claimed my humanity piece by piece.

Now, I'm ready to return to what matters—what's always mattered more than power or wealth or fear. My real home, hoping Wil will take me back. The thought of facing her, of explaining my deception and the agony it brought her, fills me with more dread than any enemy I've confronted, but I owe her the truth, and myself the chance to become the man she believed I could be—the father my children deserve rather than the monster I was raised to become.

I slide into the waiting car, leaving Makari Verebov’s metaphorical body cooling amid the ruins of his former glory. TheBratvaboss is truly dead now, his legacy ended not with glory but with quiet resignation. In his place sits just a man, flawed but hopeful, bearing the weight of past sins but finally free to create something untainted by blood.

"Take me home," I tell Leonid, thinking not of mansions or penthouses but of a coastal safehouse, where the only treasures that matter await.

26

Wil

Time crawls in the coastal safehouse, each day marked primarily by the expanding curve of my abdomen and the increasingly dramatic shifts of five active babies beneath my skin. My body has transformed beyond anything I could have imagined, stretched and strained in ways that defy medical expectation. The simple act of rising from bed now requires strategic planning and considerable effort, my center of gravity so dramatically altered that tasks I once performed without thought have become complex challenges.

"The fact that you're still mobile at all is remarkable," Dr. Wilson tells me during his weekly visit, measuring my blood pressure with a furrowed brow. "Most women carrying multiples would have been confined to bed rest weeks ago."

"I was a nurse," I remind him, wincing as Baby C delivers a particularly aggressive kick to my ribs. "I've seen what extended bed rest does to muscle tone and circulation. I'll rest when absolutely necessary, but not before."

He shakes his head with the weary resignation of a doctor whose patient refuses sensible medical advice. "Which will be now. Your blood pressure's climbing again, and the cervical changes we're monitoring suggest you need to minimize physical stress." He scribbles notes in my chart. "Complete bed rest for the remainder of your pregnancy, with bathroom privileges and short seated periods for meals."

I sigh heavily but nod, thinking about hours and days of confinement before me. Mak's absence feels heavier suddenly.

After Dr. Wilson departs with promises to return in three days rather than his usual weekly schedule, Zina helps me settle on the living room sofa with pillows supporting my lower back and swollen ankles.

"Bed rest doesn't have to mean the bedroom," she says pragmatically, arranging supplies within my reach—books, water, my phone, and the remote control for the television I rarely watch. "At least from here, you can see the ocean."

I'm grateful for her presence and for knowing me so well now. The rhythmic crash of waves against the shore has become my primary comfort, a constancy I cling to when grief threatens to overwhelm me. The ocean doesn't care aboutBratvapolitics or deaths or pregnant women carrying quintuplets. It simply continues its eternal dance with the shore, indifferent to human drama.

"We still need to finish the nursery," I say, frustrated by this new limitation. "The mobiles aren't complete, and I still have no idea for the plaques."

"I'll handle it," she says, her confidence tempered with gentle understanding. "You've already done most of the planning. Just tell me where you want everything for the final touches, and we can always do the plaques once we’re back home and know their names."

I nod, knowing she’s already come up with a workaround since I seem paralyzed on name choices. Using her artistic talent, Zina has painted delicate flowering vines around each crib, and each one is a soft pastel shade as we’d discussed. She’s personalized them with subtle variations in the blooms—roses for Crib A, lilies for Crib B, violets for Crib C, daisies for Crib D, and wildflowers for Crib E. These distinctions will help us differentiate between the five identical beds, just as we'll need to find ways to recognize the individual personalities of five babies, who may look strikingly similar.

The peaceful scene we've created carries an undercurrent of melancholy that neither of us acknowledges directly. These preparations should have included Mak, and his absence haunts the careful arrangements we make, but I’ve found moments of joy in the process too.

I doze fitfully through the afternoon, waking to the sound of tires on gravel. Leonid, who arrived earlier in the day and will stay a few hours if he follows his usual pattern, moves to the window with professional alertness, tension visible in his shoulders until he recognizes the vehicle.

"Mail delivery," he says, relaxing fractionally. "I'll retrieve it."

These deliveries are rare at our isolated property. Leonid has arranged for essentials to reach us without compromising our location, but correspondence is strictly limited, and even grocery orders arrive on an irregular schedule to prevent establishing patterns that might be tracked. Each delivery undergoes thorough inspection before reaching us, which is evidence dangers haven't entirely disappeared despite Mak's death.

Zina brings me tea as he returns with a small stack of envelopes, which he examines with methodical care, checking for tampering or other security concerns. The process would seem paranoid if I hadn't already experienced firsthand the violence that follows the Vorobev name.

"Bills," he says, setting aside several envelopes. "Grocery delivery confirmation." Another envelope joins the stack. He pauses at the final item, his expression shifting subtly. "And this." He holds out a plain white envelope addressed simply to "W" in handwriting I don't recognize. There’s nothing to indicate its origin. Something about the simple initial makes my stomach clench.

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